[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:06] Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the special meeting Monday, May 29th, 2023. It's 4 p.m. I like the call to order.
[0:21] I roll call. All members of President accept that, if you may want to maybe a little bit late, so we're going to start on time.
[0:28] So now conflicts, declaration of conflicts, interest, once, twice, three times, no conflicts.
[0:38] There's no public input session.
[0:42] There's no public presentations.
[0:45] Item 6.1 reports.
[0:47] It'll be our strategic planning session with facilitator Tim Dobby Consulting.
[0:53] Mr. Dobby, it's yours to start.
[0:56] Thank
[0:59] you Mr. Acting Mayor. I think so we this is our third meeting of our strategic planning team and
[1:11] So we are we are well into the process of developing our strategic plan
[1:17] We started in in in a session that we used as a workshop where
[1:23] to give the new members of Council on Opportunity to talk about strategic planning things
[1:30] in a process where no one was looking over their shoulder initially, but this is very much
[1:40] will be a document that's very important to you members of Council and your first turn as members
[1:47] of Council. It is a document that is completely open to the public and in fact on our agenda
[1:55] later this afternoon we are going to talk about getting out to the public and having
[2:01] then input on to the strategic actions that the strategic planning team developed. Our two meetings
[2:10] before this have been, I thought they were quite good. I personally, I really enjoyed
[2:17] the relationship between the new council and the senior staff.
[2:21] I think it's been very cooperative and active.
[2:25] And so we're moving along well in my opinion,
[2:30] on development of a draft, and I underlined
[2:32] where draft strategic plan.
[2:35] So today, we are on meeting number three,
[2:38] and this meeting is, as I understand it, televised.
[2:43] And we will be having a fourth meeting, but that one will be also televised.
[2:52] And then we'll be moving into the public input section after that.
[2:57] We'll talk about that going forward.
[3:00] But I just wanted to remind the members of our committee of what we did at our last meeting,
[3:06] which was two weeks ago tonight.
[3:08] And we worked hard, we went through the first meeting, we went through strengths, weaknesses,
[3:15] opportunities and threats, so give you a chance as members of council to say what you think
[3:22] Eliot likes strengths are, their opportunities, but on the other hand weaknesses and threats.
[3:30] And that's quite a normal way to start the development of a strategic plan.
[3:35] Last meeting, we brought back the sheets of paper that Lorian recorded for us, and we started
[3:43] talking about, so if we wanted to do something about this issue, what would we do, and we
[3:52] took a lot of information on the sheets, and I had agreed at the last meeting that Lorian
[3:58] and I would attempt to put wording to actions that came out of that meeting and what the
[4:07] main job for us tonight is to go through these actions and see whether the wording that the
[4:15] two of us have come up with, whether it meets your requirements for that particular issue or
[4:22] whether you would like to suggest amendments to it to make it more clear.
[4:29] And this is when I always remind you that this is Council Strategic Plan.
[4:35] It is not the consultants.
[4:39] Nor is it the staffs.
[4:41] This is Council Strategic Plan.
[4:43] And this plan is going to be taken out to the citizens to get the input from them.
[4:49] And then when it's finally approved, it becomes Council's strategic plan is approved by Council,
[4:58] but also within put from the community.
[5:01] So what I'm going to do tonight is to go through one by one the actions that we've written
[5:08] out.
[5:09] So that's item number two on your agenda.
[5:12] And the actions will show up on the screen and my understanding, show up if people are watching
[5:18] at home. And so we will be taking just having discussion on your views on the wording and
[5:25] are they appropriate. And then once we get through that, we want to talk about what the public
[5:32] input plan will be, what the dates might be, and then talk about the implementation plan. So
[5:40] that's kind of what we plan for tonight. We, you will note that in the actions that we
[5:48] written up. Some of them are one sentence long, but others are longer than that. The length
[5:56] of it doesn't matter, but the words do. And so what I'd like you to do is, as members
[6:01] of the team, and I'd like staff to staff who are normally involved with this strategic plan,
[6:09] if they've got any concerns about our wording, it has to work for Elliott Lake, it has to
[6:15] work, it has to be what you want in the wording.
[6:20] So we are going to have one action on, we're going to take one action at a time and review
[6:26] them.
[6:27] So you have them attached to your agenda, or you can simply look at the screen as we go through
[6:34] them.
[6:35] We, Laurian, is going to take notes on them, and we will revise them and get them back
[6:41] you before the end of the week, and so that you've got them, and then one more meeting
[6:50] of this group, and then we'll be ready to go out to the public.
[6:54] So I think we can, unless there's any questions about the agenda tonight, or what we're
[7:01] doing tonight, I suggest we get started by going to the first actions.
[7:08] And so can I see if there's any questions or comments by members of Council or staff, or are
[7:16] we ready to get into a review of the wording for these actions?
[7:29] Okay, so I just wanted to do make a point.
[7:48] Well, this is the recall that this is the page that we put up for our first action.
[7:55] So this had to do with tourism, potential, and assets.
[8:01] And we had the pages here, if you'd like, to us to pull them apart,
[8:06] and show you what we did last week.
[8:08] But so the first action that I want to bring to your attention
[8:14] is one that we identified as a strength the last week.
[8:19] And this was establishing a comprehensive marketing plan
[8:23] for this municipality to market the diverse strengths in promoting LA Lake.
[8:30] So the group thought that this was a, this, this plan for comprehensive marketing
[8:38] should touched every base that exists in the, in the community.
[8:43] So it's a fairly simple wording of the action.
[8:47] And so I would simply ask, does that give you,
[8:55] does that wording work for you or is there more detail
[9:00] that needs to be going into that?
[9:06] So we're just on the number one.
[9:35] I mean, I'm not, if that works for you,
[9:38] we'll just move on.
[9:41] So any comments then?
[9:47] Okay, let's go to the second one, and this had to do with transit, and you will remember that
[9:56] like pretty well every municipality in Ontario, transit systems operate in a deficit, and yours does.
[10:06] But there have been a recent transit study, and so this action read, take full advantage of the transit study to set the future direction
[10:17] for the transit system in LA Lake, and physicists should be placed on a transit system that
[10:23] is user friendly and has transit fair similar to other fairs in neighboring communities.
[10:29] And there was some discussion about the idea of increasing transit rates, not beyond what others
[10:39] are doing, but try and watch the operation of the transit industry. Most municipalities look at
[10:51] key performance indicators. One of the key performance indicators in transit is your revenue
[10:57] to cost for issue. They are never more than one, they are always less than one. So it's kind
[11:09] We talked to the last meeting about their being request for Sunday service, perhaps a request
[11:15] in other areas.
[11:16] So this is basically having an action that says this Council is going to look hard at the
[11:23] transit system, both the level of service, but also the revenue to cost ratio and other operating
[11:30] characteristics, and this would happen sometime over the next three and a half years.
[11:38] So does that represent what you thought we were going to do with the transit system in
[11:46] Eliot Lake?
[11:49] Don't slip like that.
[11:51] Thank you, worship through you to Mr. Dobby.
[11:54] I just, on the transit study, I don't think we've done it yet, though.
[11:59] I think that's an upcoming thing that Mr. Golding's trying to get blocked.
[12:04] Is that right?
[12:08] through your worship, yes? That's correct. Counselor from enough. I think the
[12:12] wording is still okay though, because it says it's an ongoing transit study. So
[12:16] it's probably appropriate by the time we publish this. Okay, I just wanted to
[12:21] make sure about that. Thank you.
[12:32] It really does, though, allow you to look at every
[12:37] aspect of your transit system and not just the request for Sunday service, but
[12:43] where you are on revenues and that kind of thing.
[12:50] It's something that most municipalities would do every five to 10 years,
[12:55] something like that.
[12:55] So I think it's timely.
[13:02] Can we move on number three?
[13:09] So this one, this one was an interesting discussion.
[13:14] I'm going to read it first.
[13:16] develop and promote a new program for Elliott Lake to reconnect people who have been born and
[13:23] raised in our community to return home and to enjoy working from home or retirement.
[13:30] So this is going out and trying to bring back to your community, the people who were born
[13:37] And like you, the six of you, you are in that category, you are, you have, some of you have moved away and come back.
[13:52] And it's really trying to, this is part of that community growth that we spoke about, but it's part of that community growth that is a different approach than simply retirement.
[14:03] And there are a lot of, there was a lot of discussion about this.
[14:11] So, happy to take any comments that you have, is this, is, does this describe what we were
[14:18] talking about?
[14:21] I'll start.
[14:23] The wording seems a little bit off from what we were discussing.
[14:27] I think when we talked about it, it was a program that would include potentially people that
[14:36] are born in LA and want to come home, but I'm pretty sure we wanted this, we were discussing
[14:45] working from home, remote working and that LA could become a niche place for that kind
[14:53] to work towards having, you know, housing or...
[15:00] Programs for that, so people could work from here. Doesn't necessarily have to be that they're from
[15:06] Elliott Lake. And obviously retirement is still wide open for whoever can come.
[15:16] That's what I think. Any other questions?
[15:18] Thank you.
[15:21] That's the most important part. My question is more about a new program. To me, that's a little bit vague.
[15:32] And I don't know if we could use something else in there.
[15:47] You're thinking it's just an addition to the program of attracting people to the community.
[15:54] It's not a new program, per se.
[15:57] To me, the wording program or a new program means money.
[16:04] We got you. There's a cost to that, and that's where I'm
[16:10] question.
[16:16] Okay. Perhaps we could use the word in hands.
[16:21] Developing in hands
[16:22] the program for all you like to reconnect people who not only been born and raised
[16:29] here but are looking for a great place to retire or continue working.
[16:38] Mr.
[16:38] and Tunis.
[16:43] Thank you.
[16:43] Worship through you, part of the discussion that we had, perhaps instead of program, we
[16:48] can always use the word initiative, which works well, that's not necessarily tied to
[16:54] a word like program, but there's a bit of overlap between item three and item six,
[17:01] where we can perhaps consolidate the two, where we're attracting folks that are returning
[17:07] to Elliot Lake as well as new residents,
[17:10] and tying in in item six for promoting its natural beauty
[17:14] and lifestyle and focused on quality of life,
[17:18] as opposed to just outdoor activity
[17:19] because that becomes fairly pigeonholed into a way
[17:24] to attract people,
[17:25] because Elliot Lake provides a great quality of life
[17:27] from both outdoor activities as well as indoor
[17:31] and all the other items that drop people to Elliot Lake.
[17:35] But I think that working remote retirement, working, working remote and retirement, I think
[17:42] there's maybe a way to consolidate that working remote because for many people around North
[17:47] America, working remote is now just another form of working.
[17:51] So I think maybe there's a way to massage that, we're wording into drawing people to work
[17:58] either remotely or in person to Elliot Lake might be a way to go.
[18:02] Just this gestion. Thank you. Thanks.
[18:06] That's the men. Thank you. Worship through you.
[18:09] Similar to Mr. Antunus's point about the similarities between three and six.
[18:14] I viewed one and three as a similarity as well.
[18:17] Is that three would be a subset of again the overall marketing plan for the community?
[18:28] Thank you.
[18:32] Any other questions or comments?
[18:39] Nope. Okay.
[18:51] Number four is the Council's staff can develop a corporate culture where both groups are motivated and productive in the city as seen as an employer of choice.
[19:03] Now this one was a discussion about a number of issues related to employment and just wanting to improve talk about the hiring of professionals and that kind of thing.
[19:20] And this one would eventually end up in the governance section of the strategic plan.
[19:26] But it basically, to me, is a very important issue because it's no coincidence that the
[19:34] municipalities that have run well are those that have a staff council relationship that's
[19:40] working well and yours currently is the way we've been developing the plan, so it's just
[19:45] something to continue and make permanent in the organization.
[20:02] Any questions, comment,
[20:12] do on any wording like a tract and retain,
[20:17] because I can't be
[20:17] some of our difficulties facing employment at the city,
[20:33] part of me, I think you're like
[20:36] it like the way it is.
[20:40] Yep, I'll get.
[20:41] All
[20:53] right, maintain and prove strengthen and nurture on going relationship with indigenous groups.
[21:03] This is seen as something from our group that is something that needs to happen continually in your organization.
[21:12] And this is one thing that I just used the words that you used at our last meeting.
[22:00] Lorian was just pointing out, I think we wanted to use the actual name of the First Nations Group.
[22:08] There are a few, there's Mississauga First Nation, Serpent River First Nation.
[22:14] I've been thinking maybe we could include even our community, our neighbor communities as well.
[22:23] But I think we had this because we do have a task force.
[22:26] I'll set up, but we could have another one to include our neighboring communities all along the North Shore.
[22:42] So would the group be, with respect to this, if we carefully got the correct names for the indigenous groups, but then the also the North Shore communities,
[22:54] because I think that relates to another thing that we talk about, which is shared services and
[23:00] those two can kind of join, I wouldn't put them together, but they've involved the same group
[23:06] of communities on an R-shore for the service sharing of services. So we can amend those if you
[23:13] wish to include the specific groups of indigenous groups and then also the R-shore and a relationship
[23:22] of that. That would be simple to do. Yeah, and at two points towards our strategy going
[23:30] forward. Yeah.
[23:34] Any other comments, questions?
[23:40] Council more said.
[23:43] I wonder if we should mention the federal and provincial governments. Also, if there is a way that
[23:50] could include them as they're as important as the other people might have been in anyways.
[24:02] Yep, I mean, that's a good point too, grads and relations, programs,
[24:13] I'm not sure how we
[24:14] were done in here though, Councilor Man.
[24:18] I think the point is valid, I don't know if I would want to diminish the relationship that we have with our first nation community partners with adding the federal and provincial government to this line, perhaps another bullet point, specifically about intergovernment relations, or would be more appropriate.
[24:44] I just, I'd rather keep the comments about relationships with our First Nations partners.
[24:50] Yeah, no, exactly.
[24:52] That's what we discussed at the meeting because that's, but those are other bullets that you can do.
[25:02] We couldn't, we can do that.
[25:05] Mr. Mayor, and I do, I do like the idea of mentioning in the other governments as well,
[25:12] but keeping that first nation's group on its own,
[25:16] appreciate that and we'll do that.
[25:23] This is the one that we had said
[25:25] was could be connected to one of the other,
[25:28] one that we've already dealt with.
[25:29] Continue to promote LA at Lakes for its natural beauty
[25:32] and lifestyle focus on outdoor activity,
[25:35] attract new residents to LA,
[25:37] LA, who are able to work remotely.
[25:39] So we need to put all of those two things together
[25:43] and we will do that.
[25:52] So, what you're saying is you're going to take points one and three and six and maybe make them into two separate points.
[26:04] What do you happen with that?
[26:13] I am seven.
[26:18] So, during our both of our meetings of this group,
[26:24] are you had good news that you had attracted doctors to the hospital?
[26:30] But we thought there still should be something of some statement of support by the municipality for the hospital, so this wouldn't let us to lend support to our full service hospital and sure that LA like remains fully staffed with the appropriate health care professionals to serve our growing community.
[26:54] And so we extended it beyond just looking for doctors to look for all the health care
[27:01] for us and also supporting the hospital.
[27:08] That's the girl in agreement, that Mr. Golden.
[27:12] So in Eliot Lake we have a hospital, we also have a family health team and the doctors that
[27:17] we recruit typically work in either one or both, so I wouldn't want to exclude any
[27:24] organizations from any given point.
[27:36] So we have the hospital, the family health team, we have the
[27:39] Oaks,
[27:45] a new walk in clinic.
[27:51] Your worship in counseling centers also, I think, falls into
[27:55] that category because those are as important. Yep, counseling services.
[28:08] We can add those.
[28:14] Anything else?
[28:24] Do we have anything else to add to this particular topic of strengths that have maybe crossed your mind?
[28:32] do
[28:38] we want to make a comment about city services and maintaining and trying to improve them
[28:44] as part of our strategic plan?
[28:49] Councillor Flintoff?
[28:52] Thank you. I agree with that because that's very important. That was one of
[28:57] I think we know the situation with a lot of our facilities here and we do have to improve them
[29:04] and upgrade them and I think we should put it somewhere in this strategic plan for sure.
[29:10] Yeah, like we should be proud of the services that we're providing and finding a way to make them even better.
[29:16] Backlight.
[29:28] I think the idea of a certainly service delivery review is an important topic in Ontario municipalities.
[29:39] And it's an ongoing review that most municipalities take on.
[29:45] So I think this is a good location to put it.
[29:48] And so we will add that to this.
[29:57] That's the more set.
[29:59] I don't know.
[30:00] I could wear it to put this, but I was thinking today about our finance, finance, cities,
[30:06] finances, and our reserve and the forecast of possible expenses that we're going to have
[30:17] to occur next three, four years. So I don't know
[30:24] if we should put anything in there.
[30:29] usually the best words are in the most fiscally responsible way possible.
[30:49] Can I suggest Mr. Mayor that we make a point of noting here that we need something
[30:57] in financial that covering the financial issue, but there are two coming up, one to do with
[31:02] capital projects and another one so perhaps leave it and I'll bring it up at the end of
[31:12] perhaps one piece.
[31:17] So, this is just a working plan as we get along anyway.
[31:21] Yeah, okay. So we'll bring that back. So the next one, and this is one in our two previous meetings we were talking about opportunities.
[31:34] The development strategy to considerably improve the amount of activity at the airport.
[31:41] Review the last feasibility study of the airport carried out in 2012.
[31:46] Consider how the airport can be used more effectively.
[31:50] Consider updating the feasibility study with respect to pulse aspects of the airport operation.
[31:56] I can, I do remember that in the 2015 strategic plan, there was a similar action on the airport.
[32:08] And I know that you are all keenly interested in this, and I believe we do have a capital money that we got from a grant, I think, to do with the airport.
[32:21] I just was trying to put more on the bones of this one because this is a challenging issue for your community.
[32:33] If it was easy, I think one of them done before.
[32:37] So we're really going to have to reach forward and use some particularly, I think, detailed analysis to see if there's a way that we can do something with the airport.
[32:51] It's a great facility, but it's sure underuse,
[32:57] so anyway, that's what this one's all about.
[33:03] The comments, questions,
[33:13] okay.
[33:16] And the next one, we talk about Wi-Fi and in our first two meetings, we realize that there's a lot going on in Elliot Lake in this area.
[33:29] So, we didn't really see it as something that the municipality needed to do, so we described
[33:36] that as actively pursue Internet services for Elliott Lake by encouraging private sector
[33:43] development and new facilities in the community.
[33:47] These companies will be treated on a priority basis in Elliott Lake.
[33:52] So, this is talks about being ready, willing and able to work with private sector,
[34:00] Suppliers of this service but not get into actually paying for this kind of service given that there are improvements being made now by the private sector.
[34:14] It's just recognized that those people are important and when they come to town we pay attention to
[34:24] them.
[34:24] more said. I wonder if we should include self-service as part of this plan also.
[34:31] Could there still some dead spots around
[34:42] Mr. Antunes?
[34:47] Thank you. We're just some
[34:48] morning just some notes as I went through. Perhaps massaging the word facilities into infrastructure
[34:55] because it's not really a facility that they are necessarily constructing, but actively pursue
[35:01] improved internet services for Elliott Lake by encouraging private sector development of new infrastructure
[35:06] in the community and perhaps these companies will be treated as opposed to be treated as
[35:14] an honorary basis. Companies will be offered support and are supported by the municipality in
[35:20] infrastructure development versus being treated on a priority basis as opposed to other
[35:25] infrastructure companies that come to town. I think the discussion might have circled around
[35:31] making sure that public works and staff and building departments are there offering support
[35:36] as they work through, as opposed to prioritizing necessarily over anything else, but
[35:41] it's really different, it counts as a opinion on that.
[35:49] That's a flint of.
[35:50] Yeah, I agree with Mr. Eddorting the wording that you just added, it actually makes it a
[35:56] little bit of a difference because it's definitely infrastructure. It's not actually building
[36:00] a facility. Good work.
[36:08] The word support sometimes is included with financial support,
[36:20] not
[36:20] sure how you'd re-word that if you even need to.
[36:30] Mr. Mayor, does Council agree that if there isn't a need for Elliott Lake to provide funding
[36:40] for it. How do you know, I mean, not the situational thing, I'm not sure,
[36:58] or Mr. Golding.
[37:01] It's our role to facilitate development. I would suggest,
[37:07] right, rather than support,
[37:08] we would facilitate development of that infrastructure.
[37:27] Well, I mean, as we speak, I think we're getting, we're getting the fiber optic put
[37:31] in town right now, the key can go in certain subdivisions and you see the flags in the
[37:36] ground and everything and it's happening right now, I'm at right Mr. Rollie or am I?
[37:42] That's correct through you, where should we have
[37:51] to?
[37:51] I don't mind facilitating Mr.
[37:58] Antunas.
[38:00] Sorry, again, you're worshiped through you, just to note, tying into Councillor Morrisette's
[38:04] And it's becoming very much more obvious with the development that we're seeing in the scale that Elliot Lake requires.
[38:12] A lot of this development is, again, support without the financial tie of it.
[38:17] It is market-driven, so cellular, for example, the City of Elliot Lake would not be involved in technically erecting a cell tower.
[38:25] That's usually demand-based by the carriers.
[38:27] be at Rogers Bell, where the two major carriers in the area, and to the level of infrastructure
[38:34] that we're talking about for wireless or excuse me, and at connectivity that usually as
[38:39] well as market driven by carriers or service providers. So again, the support that Mr. Golding
[38:46] talked about is the support of the infrastructure, which I think makes perfect sense. But I
[38:50] didn't want to forget Councillor Morrisett's comments about wireless, and I think that might be
[38:55] bit of a challenge for us is trying to tailwagging the dog when it comes to the wireless carrier
[39:01] which might serve as a bit of an issue.
[39:06] Thank you.
[39:12] Any other questions or comments?
[39:27] I would like to please continue to come to making applications for granted grants.
[39:34] We will apply for grants related to the projects that we see as a priority work.
[39:39] you need this will allow us to focus the work at our projects.
[39:43] And ensure that if we work at the grant, we have our own financial share,
[39:48] the project available to facilitate the completion of the work.
[39:52] So this discussion was really about that there are
[39:59] our grants that are available, but you need to
[40:02] The work shop table was that you need to focus the grants on what your priorities are.
[40:12] Some may as a faculty that had their priorities impacted, but significantly,
[40:18] by the availability of grants in particular area.
[40:22] But in the end, it can get you to the point of doing a project that isn't seen
[40:27] that you find your community as a priority.
[40:31] And our discussion in the previous meetings
[40:34] were that we needed to be strategic.
[40:38] So this action, aligned with actions
[40:42] coming up on the capital programs, setting the priorities
[40:46] and all that kind of thing.
[40:48] Well, eventually end up in the strategic plan
[40:50] together and probably would have something
[40:53] to do with the game community growth.
[40:55] But it's a slightly different approach to applying for grants.
[41:05] That's where this discussion came from.
[41:13] Any comment?
[41:21] Yeah, I think the wording is proper.
[41:24] What's what our plans are.
[41:25] We're not just going to chase every grant.
[41:27] It's going to be fitting into what we feel that we need the most and what we can afford.
[41:37] Everybody agree?
[41:40] Okay.
[41:43] On this one, I didn't have enough information about this issue to write this out, so I'm
[41:51] going to ask the staff to help me on this one. So I'll bring this back, completed for the next
[42:00] meeting, my apologies for that, but unless somebody wants to. Mr. Golden. Yeah, I think it might
[42:10] benefit to the public to just kind of flesh out what brought this up. So the city has a
[42:18] long history of having partnerships with community and corporate groups of
[42:25] Lee, BHP's had a really engaged community liaison that's been working with the city.
[42:32] But that's not to get the impact of other corporate and community partners that the city
[42:38] It has an ongoing basis and this has for a long time.
[42:42] So those strategic alliances between corporate partners and community partners, I think that's what this point was originally about.
[43:00] Well, I think there's more to it.
[43:02] BHP is going to be here for as long as we have tailings, whether it's a form of BHP or not, tailings are going to be here forever.
[43:10] So, they're going to be the guardians and if we're here, you know, we have to support that for sure.
[43:20] The city, cities that are working hand in hand with all groups, but this is a long, long-term, important one.
[43:35] So, we'll work together with staff and get some wording on this for the next meeting.
[43:42] Okay. Any other comments? No.
[43:47] Okay.
[43:54] The next one speaks to shared services and LA Lake has actually used that arrangement.
[44:03] I think there is real opportunities there and almost every thing that you do to consider
[44:10] this.
[44:11] LA Lake will consider the use of shared service as an alternative to hiring full-time staff
[44:17] and Ontario many municipalities are engaging in the use of shared services at the present
[44:22] time.
[44:23] This uses extensively in areas such as building officials,
[44:27] by-law enforcement, and shared tenders among a few of the things.
[44:33] It is really becoming with kind of the generation that is currently retiring.
[44:42] There are many people that are coming back to work for municipalities,
[44:46] but doing so working for two municipalities, one day each,
[44:50] and municipalities not having to have for perhaps a full-time cheap building official.
[45:00] I think there's opportunities here and I think they should be pursued not only in your, in your look for new employees, but also in the way you do it for services.
[45:11] There can be really true cost savings here.
[45:15] So I think this one is something that you will find your staff bringing it back to you time and time again in the next, the rest of this term and probably the future terms of council.
[45:29] Councilor Flint off?
[45:32] Thank you, Your Worship.
[45:34] With that, so would that not be sort of tied in with under the strength like what Councilor
[45:39] Man had mentioned.
[45:40] We'd like the indigenous to be separate with the fact of building our relationships with the
[45:46] communities.
[45:47] Like, so would that be tied over to this or would that go hand in hand with the shared
[45:55] services?
[45:56] But I think the better relationship is with these communities, they'll say, oh, yeah,
[45:59] you know, it's really good to deal with them, you know, let's put the cheap building,
[46:04] doctor or whatever. So the answer is yes, I think it should, it should be joined with your relationship
[46:12] with the North communities and the communities that are the ones that will work for you
[46:18] with the shared services. So I think I think those two should go together and that would then keep
[46:25] First Nations separate and I just I'm just seeing so much of this happening and it's quite
[46:34] good news because basically you're getting people who you know have a lot of experience
[46:42] who don't want to work full time but they might want to work part time and if you can share
[46:47] that between two municipalities start to focus your costs down to exactly what you need and
[46:54] And it, I think it's really worth it, really, too.
[47:00] Thank you.
[47:06] Councillor Marsette.
[47:08] I'm just wondering, through you, your worship.
[47:14] If we're going to hire somebody full-time,
[47:20] wouldn't that be
[47:22] overburdened them with work from our community
[47:25] and possibly the other community on the outskirts?
[47:34] you do have to be careful that when you do this, you, it's got, it has to work in both communities, or otherwise, it doesn't work.
[47:47] The, the chief, the building inspectors were the first by law enforcement probably the second,
[47:54] and there's, there's, there's now, and then like in southern Ontario, there's, there's planners that are working
[48:00] into adjacent municipalities, working two days at one and one day at another, and so they're
[48:08] semi-retired, and all of these are arrangements, but they do have to work, and the success
[48:17] ratio shared services is directly related to your relationship with the other municipalities.
[48:24] Well, how well do the council members get along and your staff?
[48:30] But when you see the amount of cost savings that you can realize, it becomes useful for both.
[48:39] And so let's use the building inspectors because I think most of us understand what a building inspector does.
[48:46] When there's a construction project, they're out there and they're making sure that's being built by the building code.
[48:52] They do other things, and so it depends on your level of development.
[48:58] So you have to have a full-time building inspector, pretty well means that, you know, you're going to, you have the people to inspect when you need them.
[49:10] Having a shared building inspector means that you've got to work with your development community,
[49:15] and your partner community, sharing the employee and, you know,
[49:21] Mondays and Tuesdays are here, you know, Friday they're here.
[49:27] So, there's a little more work involved in making it work,
[49:31] but the dividends are very substantial because you could be paying,
[49:36] like, 40% of what you would pay for a building inspector.
[49:41] And so, so that's why if you're going to do this, you really have to be wanting to do it
[49:48] and you have to have a good relationship.
[49:51] And then you have to work with your development community to make sure they understand
[49:56] that as an example in LA like you might only have building officials available on Tuesday and Thursday.
[50:05] But as long as they know that and they work towards, as everybody's working together, it works.
[50:09] So, it's not perfect, but it is a real savior if rather than hiring a full-time building
[50:22] inspector, which is what many of us normally would have done.
[50:26] And the smaller municipalities in Ontario are all doing this now, and they're doing it well,
[50:31] But it really, really, I can't overemphasize, you got to establish a relationship with those municipalities where you trust each other and because you, you know, very much they're working for two municipalities,
[50:50] so there's been the odd hiccup in some municipalities, but it really is simply the relationship and getting everybody on site.
[50:58] It's a little more work and organizing it, but a lot of cost savings and cost savings
[51:05] to the municipality, because in the case of the inspectors, if they're not out expecting,
[51:15] they're not creating any revenue for anybody anyway.
[51:20] So we want to try and use the building inspectors and make their job more active and talking
[51:27] to buildings and inspectors who do these jobs, working for two municipalities, they love it.
[51:32] Because they've got lots of projects to do.
[51:37] But it is a different way of working,
[51:44] and it involves the senior staff, and involves
[51:47] U.S. Council explaining to your community why you can't get a building and permanent
[51:53] expected on a Friday as an example.
[51:56] No, most municipalities have good relationships and they could, if you need to, somebody
[52:03] on a Friday you'll get somebody on a Friday, but again I can't, just, I think this one
[52:10] is one that's going to save money going forward, probably better than anything else that's
[52:17] I'm currently out there for a municipality of your size.
[52:22] Very worth a lot.
[52:24] Thanks, Mr. Intunis.
[52:28] Thank you.
[52:29] Worship through you to Council on the Sergamy.
[52:32] We went through a municipal modernization program
[52:36] analysis last year through the last term of council.
[52:41] So we did do this with a firm.
[52:43] It was based on five communities.
[52:45] So we do have a framework in place.
[52:48] We've got a plan of attack available, this is on our city website, we did go through, it was the MMP grant that we received and the program that we did.
[52:59] The firm performance concepts, which Mr. Dolby's wealth aware of, of that group, and we do have a firm on tap ready to execute, should we choose to go that route.
[53:08] And Ms. Bray might have to remind me that it was bylaw, landfill, building services, IT, and there was a, and HR, I think maybe it was a fifth one, but there was four for sure that we had in place and we have a full report and infrastructure done so as far as instituting this strategy or working through this strategy, we do already have a framework in place and very much what Mr. Dobby was speaking of.
[53:37] Thank you.
[53:41] Thank you.
[53:42] I can add to that further.
[53:44] Our council has already agreed to share a chief building official when we get one.
[53:51] So we are able to track how many applications we get per year.
[53:56] So it would be manageable to manage that workload.
[53:59] And that person would work full time here at the city light lake.
[54:02] and accept applications virtually for the other community
[54:05] and never have to leave this community.
[54:09] Okay, great, thanks.
[54:12] Any other comments or questions?
[54:17] Do we have another point or two to add to opportunities?
[54:29] Okay, let's move on.
[54:38] Our discussion
[54:46] about what I had made from the value
[54:48] of this communication program to ensure that every citizen
[54:52] has an opportunity to know what is going on
[54:55] We'll consider all points of communication and focus on the manifestation of the speech, which is everyone in our community.
[55:06] So this one I wrote is not very broadly looking at where you're going with the communication.
[55:15] I know you do a lot of it, and you also know that throughout that period, this is a challenging issue for municipalities.
[55:28] So at the other end, in council spots, I'm wondering, is this going too far?
[55:33] I don't want to look in an effort or staff stop, but are you close to where you need to be?
[55:43] So that was kind of what I was hoping to hear from folks today.
[55:49] I don't want to suggest a thorough review of your already comfortable life in the same time.
[55:54] A lot of you thought me about the communication and some areas for communication might be through
[56:04] so I'm just in care of you.
[56:08] To what you have to say.
[56:13] Any questions, comments?
[56:18] Councilor Mann?
[56:21] Thank you, Richard, through you.
[56:24] I think clearly it was put on here as a threat because we're not where we all want to be.
[56:31] Again, I can't speak on staff's behalf, but through some of the conversations, excuse me.
[56:39] Through some of the conversations we've had close, there is work to be done.
[56:44] I think, as a municipality, we just need to be very consistent in our messaging.
[56:52] You know, platforms and all of those types of avenues to get communications out,
[56:57] that becomes an operational issue, as far as I'm concerned, but ensuring that the messaging
[57:03] is comfortable with everyone as a group is important.
[57:09] Everyone outside these walls needs to have an opportunity to get the information, whether
[57:18] they choose to get it, that's up to the residents, to decide how engaged they want to
[57:25] And we know that we have people that are very engaged, so we have other people that are not.
[57:30] And that's okay.
[57:32] But we need to ensure that the information is available and accessible to everyone.
[57:36] So that would be my comments.
[57:41] I would also say there's importance in the Converse situation where the public has to communicate with us.
[57:50] And I think that's part of what we were discussing.
[57:52] how we're not hamstrung, but the committee system and how we're looking at town halls and
[58:02] hopefully that's part of what our strategic plan is in having the community communicate to us.
[58:11] I think that's part of what we're discussing as well. Just trying to improve communication in and out
[58:22] any other questions or comments,
[58:28] Councilor Flint off?
[58:31] Peggy, we're just sort of to agree with you with a point like we have started already
[58:37] with the town halls and from the staff, they were quite successful and there's been some
[58:42] things that have been done, we ended up getting an extra activity for our heritage days
[58:48] because of it or of a group and so it is a process and it's an ongoing process that we
[58:57] just can't take for granted and we as I think as a council realize that and we'll move along and
[59:05] we'll get this figured out.
[59:11] Council the Marcent? Through you, Mr. Chair. I'm just going to go back
[59:16] opportunities. I was thinking and I wrote that the city has lots of land to build on.
[59:26] We're welcome people to come and visit us if they want to build the industries or anything like that.
[59:32] That we are open to listen to them and I don't know if that's part of opportunities but I think that's
[59:41] important also that we want to grow our community.
[59:56] Mr. Mayor, I was going to raise an issue at-
[1:00:00] The end of the meeting, and it's specific to Councillor Luke's comment.
[1:00:09] So I've had discussions
[1:00:13] with staff on one today was on commercial property. And so the staff are aware that they need
[1:00:27] provide you members of council with information on what lands you have for commercial development
[1:00:35] and if you need more than where you might go for that.
[1:00:42] So I was going to, at the end of the meeting, say that I'm expecting that there will be a few
[1:00:50] more actions that aren't on this list that we're going through tonight, but will be brought
[1:00:58] at the next meeting of this strategic planning group. And I don't think it will be a lot of
[1:01:05] actions, but as an example, the commercial properties that the Council are referred to, there
[1:01:12] is an action that I'm sure you're going to want in this strategic plan so that you do have
[1:01:20] and for others to come and join you in building the new commercial building or industrial building.
[1:01:29] So, this is, these are actions related to the work that we did last two weeks ago tonight.
[1:01:39] I was, at the end of this meeting, going to say to all of the council members,
[1:01:43] If there's something that we missed, like Councilor Luke, just raised,
[1:01:52] that please let me know,
[1:01:55] like he just did, and we can cover that off.
[1:01:58] So thank you for raising that, that we will be back with that one, the next meeting.
[1:02:04] And if there's anything else, I'll repeat this again before we finish finally tonight.
[1:02:09] But I appreciate that, and this is, we're getting down in our work plan to the point where we've got a one more meeting where we could add, we could come up with maybe six or seven new actions.
[1:02:26] And if there's any that you want us to look at, I need you to get in touch with me, so I've recorded that one and we'll get those for you.
[1:02:38] There are a couple of items, Steve and I were looking at the 2015 strategic plan and there
[1:02:48] are a couple items there that you haven't completed yet that probably should be so we
[1:02:54] would bring those as well to our final meeting.
[1:02:58] So thank you for that and we'll have that one for the next meeting.
[1:03:08] Mr. Golding. Mr. Dobby was looking for some input from staff with regards to communication.
[1:03:17] I think currently city operations has a number of different communication channels that we engage in.
[1:03:27] I think you were looking for some insight into what staff's perspective of how well are we doing at this.
[1:03:33] And I think we're, by and large, doing fairly well, but it takes a considerable amount of effort to do it.
[1:03:41] And with Councillor Man saying, you know, this is kind of an operational item.
[1:03:47] But also acknowledging that it's important when I don't think anybody would take away from that.
[1:03:52] With Council acknowledging that this is an important issue.
[1:03:56] It makes staff more comfortable coming forward with solutions that could potentially let us do a better job
[1:04:02] and make it a little easier on us trying to stay engaged with not only the constituency,
[1:04:08] but visitors to the area and whatnot. So I think as written, it's actually right on,
[1:04:14] because we need to review what we're doing and figure out not only better ways to do it,
[1:04:20] but easier ways to do it.
[1:04:24] Okay, thank you.
[1:04:28] Anyone else?
[1:04:51] that are available for our community,
[1:04:54] we will carry out all hiring activities,
[1:04:57] and the professional cupcakes, and that,
[1:04:59] and require them to enter your regulation.
[1:05:02] Thank you so much.
[1:05:11] Chancellor, thank you.
[1:05:14] I would suggest, friendly,
[1:05:18] removal of the word available.
[1:05:21] We're committed to hiring the best professional
[1:05:23] staff for our community.
[1:05:24] Period.
[1:05:32] Thank you.
[1:05:38] The other comments.
[1:05:41] Mr. Golden?
[1:05:44] I'm not entirely sure that that initiative relates to 588-17.
[1:05:56] No, I think that's with the weaknesses number one.
[1:06:07] Forgive me, you know, I'm forgetting at this point.
[1:06:10] But I think there was, we've had this discussion already this evening.
[1:06:13] Is there another point that that can tie back to with
[1:06:26] those two ideas seem to rhyme?
[1:06:28] Right, this city, a scene is a employer of choice and a discussion of hiring.
[1:06:34] Thank you.
[1:06:44] Did we also discuss this, this is maybe where, you know, hiring and retaining good help.
[1:06:53] We're competing with high paying jobs in mining industries, those kind of things, labor,
[1:07:04] I've seen to recall that was part of the genesis of this one.
[1:07:21] Any other questions or comments?
[1:07:26] Is your hand up?
[1:07:29] No.
[1:07:30] No.
[1:07:35] All right.
[1:07:41] We will
[1:07:48] continue to be diligent in providing a safe organization consistent with Ontario
[1:07:55] Requirements.
[1:07:59] Which, of course, you have to do anyway, but we thought it important to be stated.
[1:08:14] Okay,
[1:08:18] do we have anything else, anybody thought I'd have to add to this topic of threats?
[1:08:31] Okay, I think no.
[1:08:37] Mr. Golden?
[1:08:40] Sorry, yes, you were sure of you just mentioned under threats.
[1:08:44] There's, I think there was some discussion of the city's efforts to better comply with insurance requirements.
[1:08:53] And that kind of concept kind of rhymes with the Ontario regulations with respect to labor,
[1:09:00] kind of administratively getting organized to engage in best practices around insurance.
[1:09:15] Thank you.
[1:09:22] More than final section of this.
[1:09:29] So these, these we got to by discussing weaknesses for the community.
[1:09:34] And one of the issues raised by both staff and Council is the infrastructure and maintaining
[1:09:44] that infrastructure going forward.
[1:09:47] So every community faces the challenge of maintaining its infrastructure such as roads, sidewalks,
[1:09:53] sewers, parks, beaches, golf courses, and ski area.
[1:09:57] LA Lake will review its financing and priorities in infrastructure repair with a view to
[1:10:04] keeping our infrastructure in good shape, and cost our under control, that this is a requirement
[1:10:10] of Ontario Regulation 588-17.
[1:10:16] So, this is similar to the issue of setting priorities for capital projects.
[1:10:24] It's setting specific priorities for infrastructure and doing what you can do to start to reduce
[1:10:34] And eventually eliminate the infrastructure gap that exists in many municipalities in Ontario to this day.
[1:10:43] So it's a more organized and strategic approach on infrastructure heavily relates on your ability to pay for it.
[1:10:53] And is something that is not the easiest thing to do.
[1:10:58] And many municipalities have not figured out how to cover off their infrastructure gap, but
[1:11:05] doing it in a strategic fashion such as this gets you started down that path.
[1:11:13] That's a quick move.
[1:11:17] Thank you, Your Worship.
[1:11:18] Just a couple things on the weekness.
[1:11:21] So when I'm reading this the same maintaining its infrastructure, but the city, I think I'm
[1:11:27] right here, we don't really maintain the golf course or the ski hill.
[1:11:32] let's done by the people that are there.
[1:11:35] So I don't know if we're maintaining the golf course
[1:11:38] in the ski hill, but would this include
[1:11:41] like what about our arena situation?
[1:11:43] That's a main infrastructure.
[1:11:45] That's going to need some TLC pretty soon.
[1:11:47] Like we've dealt with the pool.
[1:11:49] So I don't know if everybody agrees or not.
[1:11:51] But I'd like to at least get to your arena in there, for sure.
[1:11:55] If we can, or is it under a different item?
[1:11:58] It's sort of under number three.
[1:12:00] Okay, you're right, sorry, but I don't think
[1:12:04] Mr. Golden, my wrong on that. Do we maintain, of course, in the ski hill?
[1:12:08] I mean, we will help a little bit with the odd plowing, but
[1:12:11] through your worship, yeah. So, yeah,
[1:12:15] ostensibly, yes, that both of those facilities kind of have a unique
[1:12:21] organizational and ownership structure where we
[1:12:24] on the land that the ski hill facility
[1:12:28] occupies, but the infrastructure that's there may or may not necessarily be owned by the city.
[1:12:35] And the golf course, I believe the city owns outright, but we have an operations agreement with retirement living.
[1:12:42] So, yeah, there are subtle teas around those two specific areas.
[1:12:46] And I think really what you're driving home at is if we want to be specific in this list, we have to be very considered about what facilities we name and how we name them.
[1:12:56] One of them, I think, might be absent, is our water plant, if we talk about sewers, and so I'm not sure.
[1:13:07] I think Mr. Dobby would say he has an appetite to be specific.
[1:13:13] But if you are helping to finance those operations, then you may not be maintaining them individually yourself,
[1:13:25] but you are part of the partnership that provides that and so I mean I'm in press with how many facilities you have and so I wanted to put in here as big a list as I could because
[1:13:41] most municipalities, even many bigger than Elliot Lake, they don't even have these facilities.
[1:13:52] So in a way it's, so I was trying to lean towards the fact that you do have a lot of facilities.
[1:14:00] And you do, and I think you do have a relationship that you share financially, certainly with the golf course.
[1:14:08] So I'm happy to put this in a way that makes sense for you, of course.
[1:14:17] But I mean, these are the things that we asked in our interviews with all of you,
[1:14:26] what are the three big issues facing this municipality and the word infrastructure comes out really
[1:14:33] quick from everybody.
[1:14:34] And so I just didn't want to miss anything, so, but I take your point and we can
[1:14:43] with staff so we can find this wording a bit.
[1:14:48] But I'd still like to see if you're incurring costs in either of those facilities,
[1:14:55] then you're part of the team.
[1:14:57] But we are so
[1:15:02] And I'm happy to add the water plant or anything else that we've missed.
[1:15:12] Perhaps the pool as well. It's top of mind right now for everyone.
[1:15:21] Are we listing all the facilities here?
[1:15:24] And then we're going to prioritize each one as we go down. Are we going to have like a primary priority in the secondary priority?
[1:15:32] Is it going to be that specific?
[1:15:33] And the fact that you're going to prioritize both your capital projects, and you know, I know it's difficult to do, you know, is the rebuilding of an arena, is it a new, sometimes it's such a significant rebuilding that it's almost like a new project.
[1:15:56] But what you don't, your strategic plan should say,
[1:16:01] how do you want to treat your infrastructure and your capital projects
[1:16:06] in your first four years of your first term, your term?
[1:16:12] How do you want to treat those?
[1:16:14] And if you want to set priorities, you don't actually have to do it
[1:16:19] as part of the plan, but as long as you do it in a process
[1:16:23] the way that works for the community going forward.
[1:16:27] So let's see that that's something that becomes a high priority with this council.
[1:16:33] Then you'd be starting immediately to start working on prioritizing for sure the capital projects,
[1:16:41] because you know it's you have a lot of things on your agenda for wanting to make improvements
[1:16:47] to capital projects, so those need to be prioritized simply because you can't do them all at
[1:16:56] the same time. So from financial reasons. So I think it's okay to say, here's our approach,
[1:17:04] you don't have to announce the priority with the strategic plan. You just have to say, when
[1:17:08] is it we're going to get to this and deal with it? And when are we going to deal with the first
[1:17:13] capital project and and and the priorities in the infrastructure. Okay, I get it. As long as we list everything, it's in the guide. We still get the picker.
[1:17:28] Path. Yeah. Got you. Yeah. Any other comments or questions?
[1:17:40] Oh sorry, gentlemen.
[1:17:42] Sorry, thank you, Worship.
[1:17:45] I guess the only concern I would have is if we miss something. What message does that send?
[1:17:50] Clearly, we can't achieve the first priority being roads.
[1:17:57] We know that the number that we have to repair, rebuild, resurface is beyond anything that
[1:18:06] we could ever do in this term or the next.
[1:18:11] So we start listing off facilities.
[1:18:14] We talked about the airport earlier, but it's not on this specific list.
[1:18:18] My concern is you get an all-encompassing list, you miss something, what message does that send?
[1:18:24] As opposed to saying these are our top three, top three today, would have been different than probably the top three last year, or maybe they wouldn't.
[1:18:32] So that's the kind of the trade-off, the list is beyond comprehension. When we start to think about our asset management planning and the number, the true value,
[1:18:45] You know, it creates great anxiety with our treasure, I know that, and current value, right?
[1:18:53] Because we have to have a certain number of dollars in reserves in order to even apply for
[1:18:58] other funding, which we're not even there yet, in some respects, so just that comment.
[1:19:03] Thank you.
[1:19:09] Mr. Mayor, that's a real important issue.
[1:19:12] I'm glad you raised that council.
[1:19:14] But we
[1:19:19] need to have more discussion about that, but because what you described is where we are.
[1:19:28] And so I think we have to, in our, when we design the final version of the strategic plan,
[1:19:36] that issue is one that we need to be very careful because everybody in the community will have a different list
[1:19:47] of their favorite priorities, and that's fine, but you hear the council that are going to decide
[1:19:55] which one you're going to tackle first, and so we will have to be quite specific.
[1:20:00] I don't have any suggestion immediately on how to do that.
[1:20:06] We have the process in place that we can get to there and we will get to there, but we're
[1:20:11] area. It has to do with, you'll remember in our workshop, in the very first meeting, we talked
[1:20:21] about what are the chapters of our strategic plan, and I'm still in my mind. I keep changing
[1:20:32] my mind about what the chapters are, so I've not brought it to you yet. So the words that
[1:20:40] here today, the threat, weaknesses, strengths, they're not going to be in the strategic plan.
[1:20:46] What's going to be in the strategic plan is community growth, investment and infrastructure,
[1:20:53] what have you, and that's where we need to make either, and I agree completely. You either
[1:21:01] list everything, or you're top three priorities, so appreciate the comment. It takes some work
[1:21:13] to get that right, but we'll be interested in hearing from the public what they think their
[1:21:20] priorities are as well. So the priority setting for you is going to be one of the toughest
[1:21:26] projects that's a part of this work. We will do it. It will be done and be done well.
[1:21:35] I don't think there's no chance everybody in the community is going to agree on what the
[1:21:41] priorities are, but if we can show that we can show that everything we're doing is based
[1:21:50] on what's best for the community in the long run. I think that's where we will be able to
[1:21:58] make some headway. And once you establish that kind of a position where you're going and
[1:22:05] you're tackling things one at a time and working your way through it, at least people know
[1:22:11] things are getting done. But it's a good point. Thanks for raising it.
[1:22:19] So what I'm gathering is that you're asking potentially for this council to maybe have a priority list of three to five things.
[1:22:34] Okay.
[1:22:37] And we will provide a process for you to do that.
[1:22:41] That probably is going to be at the next meeting as well.
[1:22:45] So we can do that.
[1:22:50] Okay.
[1:22:51] Any other comments?
[1:22:52] I
[1:23:03] know that you have a accessibility committee, and we did want to indicate that Elliott
[1:23:12] Lake is committed to providing increased accessibility for all of the citizens of community
[1:23:20] buildings and facilities.
[1:23:22] A new capital projects are completed in the community, they will be done with the
[1:23:29] review of the accessibility requirements. That is what you've been doing that anyway, but
[1:23:35] it is, I think, wise to repeat it. And that's what's there.
[1:23:50] Any comments?
[1:24:03] The longest action is this one, and it has to do with your capital projects.
[1:24:10] And now that by the way was something that Council and staff identified as a major issue facing the community that you've got a number of capital projects that need additional money spent on them in some case of considerable amounts of additional.
[1:24:30] So, I took a run at putting this down.
[1:24:35] LA at Lake has a number of large capital projects related to facilities that are required
[1:24:41] either to be built entirely or to have extensive repairs.
[1:24:48] These include a theater, arena, welcoming center, museum, and I have left some blanks for places
[1:24:53] that things I missed.
[1:24:55] Council plan is to set priorities and carry out one capital project at a time.
[1:25:01] These projects will be evaluated in particular from the finance point of view to ensure
[1:25:07] that Elliot Lake can make the best use of tax dollars and delivering these capital projects.
[1:25:13] The review for each project will look at our ability to pay for the project but also the appropriate
[1:25:20] type of project and level of service that each new facility would provide, extensive public
[1:25:28] involvement will be undertaken throughout the process.
[1:25:32] So the other infrastructure action was the infrastructure action thing and this is the
[1:25:39] capital project one. This is to my view the toughest one and this is Mr. Mayor through
[1:25:48] to the rest of Council is I think that's tough job of setting priorities. It's something that
[1:25:56] is going to be needs to be done. So that was my attempt at trying to write it down and it's
[1:26:05] certainly a longer action than you would normally write in a strategic plan.
[1:26:18] How can we set our goal on certain things,
[1:26:27] possibly other things happen, and we have so
[1:26:30] like focus on that more than our goals that we have in our plan here?
[1:26:43] It would be naive for us to think that there won't be something that happens entirely
[1:26:50] new that we haven't even talked about in the development of the strategic plan.
[1:27:00] Some government is going to level of government that may have a program or may want municipalities
[1:27:08] to do things. You only have to look at the last three years with the amount of work you
[1:27:16] would have spent wearing about the virus that none of us knew was going to occur in 2015.
[1:27:25] So it's going to happen again. It may not be a virus, but municipalities are faced with new
[1:27:33] things, every term of council,
[1:27:38] so I think you need to, you know,
[1:27:43] you had no choice, but
[1:27:44] to tackle the virus in the way that you and other municipalities did, it overwhelmed many
[1:27:52] municipalities, it got many municipalities behind and doing the work that they needed to do
[1:27:59] because they were so involved in that.
[1:28:02] All you can do, I think, is respond when it happens and recognize that there will be things in this strategic plan that become new and they won't be covered.
[1:28:20] There will also be things that you have in this plan that things may change and you may no longer have.
[1:28:28] the priority that you thought you might have had.
[1:28:33] And all it means is that you need to continue
[1:28:37] operating this municipality by having council working
[1:28:41] with staff, the senior staff, in a cooperative
[1:28:45] and professional way.
[1:28:48] And that's the secret to when things that you've never expected
[1:28:53] come like the virus.
[1:28:55] It's also the secret that you should be getting a report regularly on your strategic plan that shows you how staff are doing with the implementation of all of these actions.
[1:29:10] And we have in our work plan in developing this strategic plan, an implementation plan which staff will, and we talked about reporting to Council three or four times a year using kind of a,
[1:29:26] A red light green light amber light approach to how the projects are going because you can't
[1:29:33] start all this work in the first six months.
[1:29:37] You have to spread it out over the three and a half months or a year, sorry, that remain in
[1:29:43] your first term.
[1:29:45] So I know that's not a really heartwarming answer that gives you all sorts of assurety that
[1:29:52] you're going to be able to handle it.
[1:29:54] But if you look at how this municipality handled the virus, there was a ton of work.
[1:30:02] So, we need to be ready that there will be some flexibility in what we're doing and I think that's, I think we'll have that in this plan.
[1:30:14] Councilman.
[1:30:15] Thank you. We're just to add to that.
[1:30:19] I don't know if, as a council, we want to say, set priorities and carry out one capital project at a time.
[1:30:26] If that was the case, we would not be redeveloping an art space and redeveloping our pool at the same time.
[1:30:34] Now again, I'm not trying to wordsmith, but again, it's very prescriptive.
[1:30:38] If we do one project at a time, our list just went over a lifetime instead of a much shorter amount of time.
[1:30:45] There's a capacity issue of staff in order to achieve these things, but I don't know if we want to be that limiting.
[1:30:52] There's a road being done in town, but can't do anything else this year.
[1:30:56] I think that's because there could be a funding opportunity that comes available that we
[1:31:00] want to jump on because there's a potential that it fits in with our planning purposes.
[1:31:06] Yeah, and we can amend the wording to cover that point for sure, thank you.
[1:31:16] Perhaps there should be some wording to, well, you're basically saying that we need something
[1:31:22] new or rebuilt entirely or extensive repairs, something that take advantage of opportunities
[1:31:33] that may present themselves,
[1:31:41] like plan B, do I do things?
[1:31:45] Yes, we could do that.
[1:31:53] Yeah, this is a motion thing, it's a work in progress, things will change for us as we go.
[1:32:01] I don't. The wording here is very limiting. I feel other
[1:32:14] comments,
[1:32:21] concert flint off.
[1:32:24] Yeah, nothing's actually stoned.
[1:32:28] As you say, the virus things happen.
[1:32:33] We may have to swing one way or the other, so I mean we will have a strategic plan,
[1:32:37] but we may have to adapt as we go along.
[1:32:42] I think you just don't want to limit us on certain projects and then we can't, as Mr.
[1:32:49] Councillor Mads said, oh no, we can't go over there now because we're going one way.
[1:32:55] But we'll be adoptable, but we will keep on track with this strategic plan.
[1:33:02] Okay.
[1:33:02] Thank you.
[1:33:03] Councillor Morse.
[1:33:05] Similar feeling is just, I think the public
[1:33:09] needs to understand that this is only like a guy for us, it's not the letter of the law,
[1:33:17] so to speak. And when they see this, we need to work, let's say our number one is the arena,
[1:33:26] but something else happened that we're allowed to select play around a little bit, and I think that's
[1:33:33] important for the public to understand that this is a guide for us and not a.
[1:33:44] So I think I understand the issue and we will, you know, these are major projects.
[1:33:55] The staff have to keep their eye on them all the time anyway. Certainly if it's a facility
[1:34:02] that's currently being used and it's going to be going to be improved.
[1:34:06] So we can word this so that staff are always looking for opportunities to have a win in that you hear from government that, you know, there's some sort of a program that maybe there is funding for it but that there wasn't before and that can impact your priority.
[1:34:32] But where we started on this, we started on this discussion in saying that we were going
[1:34:38] to go after grants strategically, not just for the sake of going after grants.
[1:34:45] And I may have pushed the wording, well, I didn't may have.
[1:34:48] I didn't push the wording too far.
[1:34:51] And you're worried about being tied to something that you might get good news and now you've
[1:34:59] but it documents as you can't take advantage of the news.
[1:35:03] I can fix that and we'll do that for this particular one.
[1:35:07] This is really important for LA late.
[1:35:10] So I appreciate the comments that you're making,
[1:35:13] and we will hit the mark here shortly.
[1:35:15] Okay, thank you.
[1:35:18] And the other comments.
[1:35:32] So the next one is we did note one of the staff raised the point that they wanted to do a review of
[1:35:40] the municipal systems currently in place and develop an implementation plan to ensure that systems
[1:35:46] for monitoring the work of the municipality or in place and operating effectively.
[1:35:51] This is making sure that you operate and deliver your services in a way that you can compare
[1:36:00] how you're doing together with other municipalities and gives you that it's kind of that service
[1:36:06] delivery review that we spoke about earlier today, and there's been a lot of work done on this,
[1:36:16] but the staff are concerned that there are some things that need they need to get moving on,
[1:36:22] so that's what this one is about.
[1:36:28] Any comments?
[1:36:37] We're good.
[1:36:43] The last one that we need to review
[1:36:45] is the one that is going to need a lot of rewarding because anyway I'll read what I've put
[1:36:58] forward and the city of LA at Lake will carry out a review of volunteer opportunities in the
[1:37:03] community. Traditionally LA at Lake has used a different approach which involves paying volunteers
[1:37:09] who are part of an organization and the volunteers pass the money onto their clubs. This is
[1:37:15] consistent with the insurance policy for the municipality and then I confess that this wording
[1:37:24] really needs a lot of work.
[1:37:29] I don't want to spend a lot more time on this before we try to
[1:37:37] take it out to the public. So this is a priority for me to get to know exactly what this
[1:37:43] issue is but you are in a bit of a catch 22 as far as your insurance costs are going up.
[1:37:55] That has some of the reason for that is the way that you deal with volunteers, so this
[1:38:01] one needs some careful wording and more careful wording on my part, but it is an
[1:38:07] issue that you need to do and I'll accept help from anybody that will help me understand
[1:38:16] this one but it is unique to I think it is unique to LA at Lake Act. I've worked in 65 municipalities
[1:38:25] on Ontario this first time I've heard about this so I'm happy to hear anything people want
[1:38:34] to think about tonight, but we, this needs some work for sure.
[1:38:41] Councillor Mann.
[1:38:43] Thank you.
[1:38:43] We're ship through you.
[1:38:45] I think another component of this specific, specifically is just because we did it this
[1:38:50] way for the last 40 years.
[1:38:52] It doesn't mean we're going to continue doing it.
[1:38:54] And it's a mind shift.
[1:38:56] It's a different perspective on a topic.
[1:39:00] And I think that's why it's right here, front and center, is because of
[1:39:05] ways in which this community has operated in a way to assist service clubs and other groups
[1:39:12] may not necessarily be the way that it's being done in other areas or jurisdictions.
[1:39:19] So when, as you commented on, being a good insurance policy holder, when you have those reviews
[1:39:26] and you say, you can't really do that anymore, it becomes this major change and it's not necessarily
[1:39:33] change probably should have been doing it in the first place and I think that's the education
[1:39:37] piece that we have to get out to the community. So it goes a lot deeper than you know you can't
[1:39:44] have club X helping you sell lemonade on a Saturday afternoon should have never been doing it in
[1:39:51] the first place or it should have been there event in the first place as well.
[1:39:57] Thank you and it comes
[1:40:03] I think this volunteer, like this whole volunteer thing, I think this goes back to maybe even with some of us
[1:40:10] counselors when we were writing.
[1:40:12] We need to build up the community spirit now we at Lake again.
[1:40:16] Get the public to want to get involved.
[1:40:19] Like with our street dance coming, get a few of them.
[1:40:22] I'd love to go and help, you know, bartend and you know, you can connect the city.
[1:40:28] want to be part of the community. So, we have a strength that we have to work on our relationship
[1:40:35] with the staff and the council and we really are working on that, but I also think we have to
[1:40:39] work our relationship with all the public that we can get the community spirit up the volunteers will
[1:40:45] show up.
[1:40:58] Yeah, I think the meaning behind this one is that we've had trouble in the past and we
[1:41:05] as this council are looking forward to find better ways to not only figure out these issues
[1:41:12] and do it properly, but also some ways that where our local groups are supported, there
[1:41:21] might even be ways that we can help with insurance policies, those kind of things. That's
[1:41:26] direction, we want our staff to look into,
[1:41:33] Elia Lake has been based on volunteer service
[1:41:36] for programs forever. We have a ton of good volunteers.
[1:41:45] We don't want them alienated,
[1:41:47] we want them to come back. We are seeing improvements already, but there's still a lot of
[1:41:55] on insurance litigation, all those fears come into play, and the costs are astronomical.
[1:42:05] So, if we can find a way to save some money in this one too, that would be hopeful.
[1:42:15] Any other comments?
[1:42:21] Okay, so it's quarter to six about, I guess we'll take a 30 minute break, is that what
[1:42:28] we're asking?
[1:42:37] Do you have any final comments, or do you want to come back and think about it?
[1:42:41] because after this, we're going into closed session for the other portion.
[1:42:47] I can wrap up this part of the meeting in like five minutes and we could, um, so basically what
[1:42:58] what I wanted to say at the end of this. Um, so, so thank you very much for all your comments
[1:43:05] that you've given us today. It's been very helpful. We will turn this around quickly and get
[1:43:11] me forward. So we have, I haven't counted exactly how many actions that we just went through,
[1:43:19] but I think it's like in the kind of low 20s. I think there are a few actions that still need to
[1:43:28] brought in to here, but when we talked in our workshop about, you know, kind of 24 to 30 actions
[1:43:37] are the, what we're trying to get to, I think we will get to that without any trouble.
[1:43:44] The last plan had 60 actions, and it's really too much for a community of this size.
[1:43:53] Anyway, so we will be coming back for one more meeting on actions, we'll have all of these
[1:44:03] will be amended in the fashion that you've asked us to amend them.
[1:44:08] We will speak to staff about any that they want to bring forward for your consideration.
[1:44:15] We will also, if members of council think about one that's missing that you want, you
[1:44:21] can either talk to staff and they'll talk to us or you can call me directly.
[1:44:26] So we're pretty close to getting to where that, having the, the action's done.
[1:44:33] So the public input will be happening around June the 20th, 21st, something like that.
[1:44:42] I think that would be, there was kind of thinking of midweek and we would use a municipal
[1:44:49] facility and invite people to come out and see the draft actions and come in on them and
[1:44:58] that kind of things.
[1:45:00] That's going to happen. And then we will also, at the next meeting, give you more details about the implementation plan that staff will have.
[1:45:10] So we're moving along fine. Our schedule is moving along very well. So I just would really ask you if there's something that you think in the next two weeks that we are missing.
[1:45:27] You've told me some of you have told me things that are missing now. We've got those, but if you see something is missing
[1:45:35] We will
[1:45:37] We will be getting it for the next meeting of this group
[1:45:42] We will be sending out the wording in advance so that you've got a chance to read it before we have her me
[1:45:48] But we're coming along quite well and
[1:45:51] There's no reason we can't complete our public input phase in June and get the strategic plan
[1:45:58] Approved likely in your first council meeting in July or something like that so I think that that that's going to be good
[1:46:08] Because your
[1:46:09] You know your first term is as well underway, so but I think we're doing we're moving along quite well
[1:46:18] very pleased with how much information you provided today.
[1:46:23] So I don't think we need to come back and work on this any further tonight.
[1:46:29] But we will come up with a date for that.
[1:46:32] For one final meeting where we bring it all together, you approve the draft.
[1:46:36] We go out to the public implementation plan.
[1:46:39] All of that comes back to you in early July for final approval.
[1:46:44] So we're moving along well and appreciate it.
[1:46:49] Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Dobby.
[1:46:54] Well, any last chance, staff, any comments or questions and
[1:47:01] counselors?
[1:47:04] Okay, thank you again, Laurie and Tim, much appreciated.
[1:47:12] That ends 6.1 for this strategic planning session.
[1:47:16] So we're going to go into closed door.
[1:47:19] 6.2.
[1:47:22] Okay, report from Tidadovi Consulting Limited regarding recruitment of chief administrative officer, as this matter deals with personal matters about identifyable individuals. It may be discussed in closed session as per section 239 to be of the municipal act.
[1:47:42] May have a motion that this matter be discussed in closed session.
[1:47:45] motion, mover, counselor, bowl, seconded, counselor, man, all in favor, none are opposed,
[1:47:53] not to carried, there are no notices of motion, number eight, a denim, they have a motion
[1:48:02] that we add, the a denim to the agenda, may have a mover, counselor more set, seconded,
[1:48:09] Council are flint off all in favour, none are posed that is carried, so 8.1 is the report
[1:48:17] from the Director of Finance and Treasury regarding update on city-wide software solution
[1:48:23] as this matter deals with security of the property of the municipality as well as a trade
[1:48:28] secret or scientific technical, commercial or financial information that belongs to the municipality
[1:48:35] or local board and has monetary value or potential monetary value.
[1:48:40] It may be discussed in closed session as per section 2392A and J of the municipal act.
[1:48:47] May have a motion that this matter be discussed in closed session.
[1:48:50] Move over.
[1:48:51] Councilman, seconded Councillor CIDLE, all in favor.
[1:48:57] None are opposed, that is carried.
[1:49:03] I have a motion that counts a proceed into the closed session at the hour of 549 p.m.
[1:49:11] mover, counselor flint off, seconded counselor ball, all in favor, and that is Gary.
[1:49:50] Okay, I have a motion that counts will return to open session at the hour of 724 p.m.
[1:49:57] mover, Councillor Sightle, seconded, Councillor Bull, all in favor, on our pose that is carried.
[1:50:06] There are no introduction and consideration of bylaws, confirmatory bylaw, no 12, adjournment.
[1:50:16] I have a motion that this meeting adjourned at the hour of 724 p.m., mover, Councillor
[1:50:21] men, seconded, counselor Flint off.
[1:50:27] All in favor, and I'm opposed, and that is carried.